This pretty much sums up my perception of Jindal's performance in the spill response.

Last year, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) -- a rising star in the GOP and potential nominee for the presidency in 2012 -- gave a widely mocked rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address, prompting many pundits to conclude that his national political career was over before it began. But, taking a cue fromRudy Giuliani's*exploitation of the 9/11 attacks while mayor of New York City, Jindal saw a chance rebuild his political capital by using the Gulf oil spill. He sprang into action with press conferences and helicopter rides to show he's a take-charge leader. The governor quickly became Obama and the federal government's chief critic, relentlessly attacking their allegedly slow response to the spill and lambasting the "red tape and bureaucracy" preventing him from getting the job done. Jindal's theatrical deployment of these trappings of leadership has been largely rewarded by favorable press coverage, reigniting speculation of a 2012 run. But new revelations and a close inspection of the facts suggest that Jindal's sound and fury is little more than political grandstanding for the Fox News set, and it serves to obscure Jindal's own serious failings in the spill response effort. While Jindal has been relentless in attacking the federal government for*dragging its feet, he has delayed the deployment of National Guard troops, led a crusade to build artificial sand berms that most experts say won't work, and confused the planning of the spill response. Moreover,*experts said his "antagonism could actually slow down that response." "When that stuff happens, you actually*take away the ability*of the unified command to get their job done," said former Coast Guard official Doug Lentsch, who was involved in the Exxon Valdez disaster and helped develop the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. But the true impact of Jindal's blustery leadership may never be known, as Jindal vetoed a bill Friday that*would have required him to make public all of his office's documents relating to the spill. "His excuse is he is afraid that BP would find out something Louisiana did, and I always thought justice was about the truth and facts," said Republican state Sen. Robert Adley.

NATIONAL GUARD: Nowhere has Jindal's hypocritical grandstanding been more apparent than on the issue of National Guard troops. Jindal demanded*6,000 Guard troops in the early days of the spill -- a request the Department of Defense quickly approved. "We are absolutely in a war to protect our way of life," Jindal has said. Despite his constant attacks on the federal government for supposedly under-resourcing his efforts, almost two months after the troop request was approved, "only a fraction -- 1,053 -- have actually been deployed by Jindal to fight the spill," a CBS News investigation found. This prompted Obama, in his Oval Office address, to specifically and publicly urge Jindal and other Gulf state governors "to activate these troops as soon as possible." In response to the CBS investigation, Jindal predictably blamed the federal government for the delay, saying, "the Coast Guard and BP had to authorize individual tasks." But Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, flatly denied this claim. "There is nothing standing in the governor's way from utilizing more National Guard troops," Allen said. "In fact, the Coast Guard says every request to use the National Guard has been approved, usually within a day," CBS noted. Finally,*Jindal's office admitted that the governor "has not specifically asked for more Guard troops to be deployed," but failed to explain why Jindal had not used the troops. As Washington Monthly's Steve Benen noted, "Jindal is either deeply confused about something he should understand, or he was lying." Jindal's failure here underscores the need to bring in the military to take charge of the disaster response, as the Center for American Progress has urged.

SAND BERMS: In recent weeks, Jindal has launched a crusade to build artificial barrier islands off the Louisiana coast, on the theory that they would prevent the oil from washing ashore. Jindal has repeatedly blasted the federal government for being hesitant to approve this plan, an offensive which Fox News has dutifully supported. "We don't have time for red tape and bureaucracy," Jindal told reporters of the berms. "We're literally in a war to save our coast."* But most experts have expressed serious doubts about the effectiveness of Jindal's plan, noting the exorbitant costs are probably not worth it and warning that the berms could actually cause more harm than good. Rob Young, the director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, warned in the Yale Environment 360 blog that "there are many potential negative impacts of this structure on the coastal environment." "I have yet to speak to a scientist who thinks the project will be effective," he added. Young explained that the berms will be "extremely susceptible to erosion" and "could disappear within a few months" -- much faster if struck by a hurricane. Meanwhile, the project will be "incredibly expensive," and many experts argue that the resources used to construct berms could be better applied elsewhere. Before approving the project, the Army Corps of Engineers gave other federal agencies less than one day to submit comments, but even in the limited time, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Interior expressed deep reservations. The EPA "directly questioned the proposed berm's effectiveness," while Interior said that it did not "think the risks inherent in proceeding without more environmental study and knowledge are acceptable." Risks include actually worsening the spill's impact on marshes by trapping oil behind the berms and increasing the speed of oil flowing through the remaining openings in the artificial shield of islands, effectively pumping oil into the delicate marshes. Above all, the barrier will take at at least nine months to complete, and the first berms will be complete "no sooner than August," according to the contractor building them. Many -- including the EPA -- say this will be too late to have any impact. As Mother Jones noted, "griping about the berms has...become Jindal's plan to keep the spotlight on him and his criticism of the federal government, long-term damage to the state's ecosystem be damned."

PLANNING:*Another favorite line of attack of Jindal's is to insist that the government did not properly plan*for the disaster. "We kept being assured over and over that they had a plan, that there was a detailed plan, that it was coming; we never got that plan," he said. But as the New York Times noted, "under the law, oil spill experts said, there are only two kinds of government plans pertaining to spills, and the state is partly responsible for both." Response officials confirmed that Jindal's own office*approved plans that are currently in use, despite his feigned ignorance. More troubling, some of the plans prepared by the state "are rife with omissions, including pages of blank charts that are supposed to detail available supplies of equipment like oil-skimming vessels." For example, "a draft action plan for a worst case is among many requirements in the southeast Louisiana proposal listed as 'to be developed.'" When pressed at news conference as to why the state had not developed better plans, Jindal once again reverted to attacking the federal government. As the Baton Rouge Business Report observed after the exchange, "The impression left that afternoon on several members of the media was that the state hadn't done any oil-spill planning before [the Deepwater Horizon explosion], instead choosing to rely on other entities for protection." Moreover, Jindal keeps moving the goal posts of the plan, such as when he "requested three times as much boom as the state's plan had called for -- and 50% more boom than existed in the entire nation." Soon thereafter, he switched gears to the sand berm approach, which is barely mentioned in the state's plans. But it's not surprising that Louisiana's planning has been lacking, considering that Jindal undercut the state's ability to prepare for an oil spill. He cut $750,000 from*the budget of the oil spill research and development program and moved the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's office from the governor's direct oversight into "a basement in Facility Planning" at the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

an offshoot of "The Center for American Progress Action Fund" - a progressive think-tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action. We are creating a long-term, progressive vision for America—a vision that policy makers, thought-leaders and activists can use to shape the national debate and pass laws that make a difference.

My alma mater had a big mining and geology department so a bunch of my old college buddies are geologists. I haven't heard one who thought it was a good idea.

david gibson

06-28-2010, 03:41 PM

So, as a geologist, what is your opinion on the sand berms?

My alma mater had a big mining and geology department so a bunch of my old college buddies are geologists. I haven't heard one who thought it was a good idea.

i am very much against them and other shore based hard structures as long-term measures to prevent erosion as they have tried to do here in texas. as a stop-gap measure to keep this oil out of the marshes i am a bit more at ease with it. problem is, with a blow like they are about to get, they wouldnt hold up anyway.

what is your alma mater, and what do these guys do? not being picky, but geologists are just like doctors and lawyers, many areas of specialty. you dont call dnf to do heart surgery, and i dont know volcanoes too well. i do know a bit about coastal process and deposition/sedimentation. to be honest, each sand berm structure should be evaluated in its own right. they will all have a different effect depending on the specific orientation, tidal movement, etc in their immediate area. some good, some bad, some so so, and they can even have an effect on each other.

i do applaud their consideration as a first line of emergency defense - we need something!

but then you bring in 40 mph winds and 6-10 or better seas and all goes to hell. sand erodes and goes away quickly, and hard structures (sand bag walls, geotubes, riprap) are horrible in the long run, but again, we need immediate protection. i would even support geotubes there now, they will hold up and can at least be removed fairly easily later.....

huntinman

06-28-2010, 03:41 PM

So, as a geologist, what is your opinion on the sand berms?

My alma mater had a big mining and geology department so a bunch of my old college buddies are geologists. I haven't heard one who thought it was a good idea.

Do you or your buddies have a better idea ready to implement?

dnf777

06-28-2010, 03:45 PM

At Presque Isle in Erie, they constructed artificial berms to break up waves and save the beaches from erosion. What happened was so many birds park on the blocks and sh!t into the water, they have frequent beach closings due to unacceptably high E. coli counts in the water!

Not that that applies to Grand Isle, but it supports the view that man rarely intervenes in nature without creating at least as many problems as we solve!

(maybe the E coli will kill the zebra mussles we accidently introduced!)

Buzz

06-28-2010, 04:23 PM

what is your alma mater, and what do these guys do? not being picky, but geologists are just like doctors and lawyers, many areas of specialty. you dont call dnf to do heart surgery, and i dont know volcanoes too well. i do know a bit about coastal process and deposition/sedimentation.

The same can be said about specialization within the different engineering disciplines.

Here is a link to the department webpage:

http://www.geo.mtu.edu/

We keep in touch via a list server that the university provides for campus organizations and their alumni, as well as facebook these days. The geology majors I still keep in touch with are in mining, oil exploration, environmental engineering, groundwater, etc. Here is an email I got from one of the guys the morning after the disaster happened.

Hey man,

You should be looking at foxnews.com <http://foxnews.com> <http://foxnews.com> - CNN is liberal bias bullshit haha

I'm ok and the rig I'm on (Ensco 8501) is OK. - Thanks for looking out.

The Deep Water Horizon (17 miles from our location) had a explosion last night is is currently burning uncontrollably and listing 10 degrees (reported explosion around 10PM last night) - I can see flames and smoke rising as the rig continues to burn. Last night, around 03:30 the Coast Guard started using our rig as a refueling/assisting hub as they are searching for 12 missing workers; hopefully they just haven't found the lifeboat yet...we don't know anything more as this point in time. We had work boats working our rig with equipment and they left our location to assist with the search as well as use their water cannons to assist in putting out the flames.

It's in the same area as we are - we can see flames shooting up when I came out @ 6AM - now with sun light all i see is smoke - and the Coast Guard again has just landed to refuel. If you see it in the news, it's not the rig I'm on (Ensco 8501), but we are in the area. Currently there are no reported causalities; just missing and injured persons (think they had ~120 on board) - hopefully, the missing are in the lifeboats.

The same can be said about specialization within the different engineering disciplines.

Here is a link to the department webpage:

http://www.geo.mtu.edu/

We keep in touch via a list server that the university provides for campus organizations and their alumni, as well as facebook these days. The geology majors I still keep in touch with are in mining, oil exploration, environmental engineering, groundwater, etc. Here is an email I got from one of the guys the morning after the disaster happened.

wow, you really do have friends. but the salutation does say "hey man" , kinda generic....not positive its really from a friend to you....

;-)

depittydawg

06-28-2010, 04:41 PM

This pretty much sums up my perception of Jindal's performance in the spill response.

Jindal is an opportunistic politician. I would expect him to exploit this disaster to push his agenda to every extent possible. In fact I think Obama is a either a damn fool or just doesn't care about changing the country's energy policy because he's managed to miss the opportunity to educate American's on the reality of our insane energy policies. But then I guess when the President and leaders of our political machines are all in bed with Big Oil, what would you really expect?

Buzz

06-28-2010, 04:50 PM

wow, you really do have friends. but the salutation does say "hey man" , kinda generic....not positive its really from a friend to you....

;-)

Whatever.:rolleyes: He's a fraternity brother.

Go ahead and see if you can find that posted anywhere on the internets besides RTF.

Franco

06-28-2010, 04:54 PM

Buzz, I read that article too last week on the Huffington Post.

In all fairness, the man has been living near the coast since the leak began and has done more to protect the coast than all of DC put together. Maybe some mistakes in judgement have been made but one thing he can't be faulted for is in devoting all his energies into protecting the coast.

Franco

06-28-2010, 05:00 PM

Jindal is an opportunistic politician.

Couldn't be further from the truth. Had he not made the noise he did, we would have not received the attention we have. Gov Jindal is the least political animal I've witnessed in my lifetime!

If he ever decides to run on the national stage you can bet his only motivation would be to serve the public. Unlike what we have currently in DC.

dnf777

06-28-2010, 06:02 PM

If he ever decides to run on the national stage you can bet his only motivation would be to serve the public.

And I got a bridge for sale!

That dog ain't gonna hunt! (and I like the guy....but NO politician rises to that level based on public service! Even ACorn supporters!) ;)

depittydawg

06-28-2010, 06:19 PM

Couldn't be further from the truth. Had he not made the noise he did, we would have not received the attention we have. Gov Jindal is the least political animal I've witnessed in my lifetime!

If he ever decides to run on the national stage you can bet his only motivation would be to serve the public. Unlike what we have currently in DC.

Hope your right. It certainly would be a refreshing change.

Clint Watts

06-28-2010, 06:24 PM

This pretty much sums up my perception of Jindal's performance in the spill response.

That article isn't biased at all. Jindal has the left scared and rightfully so.

david gibson

06-28-2010, 06:26 PM

Whatever.:rolleyes: He's a fraternity brother.

Go ahead and see if you can find that posted anywhere on the internets besides RTF.

ok, have you noticed the last few days i have tried to be more friendly? i an tired of the pissing matches, and aim more for serious discussion, and i think my background gives me at least some degree of merit.

when i jab you and add a smiley face, i hope you would pick up that am fu__ing with you in fun........

sigh....you libs have no sense of humor...

note:

:-)

dnf777

06-28-2010, 07:04 PM

ok, have you noticed the last few days i have tried to be more friendly? i an tired of the pissing matches, and aim more for serious discussion, and i think my background gives me at least some degree of merit.

when i jab you and add a smiley face, i hope you would pick up that am fu__ing with you in fun........

sigh....you libs have no sense of humor...

note:

:-)

Jeez Dave.....when we're used to hearing .45s whiz past our brainpans, then you pull out a pop gun, don't be surprised if we still duck! :D

Disclaimer: not conceding that I'm liberal. Just on a few things.

david gibson

06-29-2010, 02:29 PM

Jeez Dave.....when we're used to hearing .45s whiz past our brainpans, then you pull out a pop gun, don't be surprised if we still duck! :D

Disclaimer: not conceding that I'm liberal. Just on a the wrong things.

there, fixed it. ;-)

kb27_99

06-29-2010, 03:54 PM

In fact I think Obama is a either a damn fool or just doesn't care about changing the country's energy policy because he's managed to miss the opportunity to educate American's on the reality of our insane energy policies. But then I guess when the President and leaders of our political machines are all in bed with Big Oil, what would you really expect?

I have read this from you a couple of different times. So I ask you, what would you suggest? What changes, what new polices? Inquiring minds would like to know.

depittydawg

06-29-2010, 04:20 PM

I have read this from you a couple of different times. So I ask you, what would you suggest? What changes, what new polices? Inquiring minds would like to know.

The failure of Obama is one of leadership. He has the biggest stage in the world and has failed to use it. Instead of specifying what needs to be done, and twisting congress, especially his own party, to enact it, he has defered to what is no doubt one of the most corrupt and ineffective congress' in our history to work it out, then he goes along with whatever they come up with. With health care we started with something meaningful and ended with a giant question mark that the insurance industry more than any others crafted. His lack of leadership lead to that fiasco. Now we see the same pattern with financial reform. In this case they waited until they could all shout success, and now behind closed doors are gutting the bill.
I think the root of Obama's lack of leadership is his belief that getting 'something' done is paramount; rather than doing the right thing. What he should have done is veto the final health care bill that was sent to him and hold the Senate accountable to the electorate for screwing it up. It's looking like the same ending for financial reform.

road kill

06-29-2010, 04:32 PM

The failure of Obama is one of leadership. He has the biggest stage in the world and has failed to use it. Instead of specifying what needs to be done, and twisting congress, especially his own party, to enact it, he has defered to what is no doubt one of the most corrupt and ineffective congress' in our history to work it out, then he goes along with whatever they come up with. With health care we started with something meaningful and ended with a giant question mark that the insurance industry more than any others crafted. His lack of leadership lead to that fiasco. Now we see the same pattern with financial reform. In this case they waited until they could all shout success, and now behind closed doors are gutting the bill.
I think the root of Obama's lack of leadership is his belief that getting 'something' done is paramount; rather than doing the right thing. What he should have done is veto the final health care bill that was sent to him and hold the Senate accountable to the electorate for screwing it up. It's looking like the same ending for financial reform.

Karl is very proud of you!!;-)

rk

depittydawg

06-29-2010, 05:14 PM

Karl is very proud of you!!;-)

rk

But then Adolf has his eye on you...

huntinman

06-29-2010, 06:03 PM

But then Adolf has his eye on you...

The other lib fallback. Either Bush did it or you are a Nazi. Great debate pup.

david gibson

06-29-2010, 06:07 PM

The other lib fallback. Either Bush did it or you are a Nazi. Great debate pup.

the funny thing is that obamas strategy fits so much more with hitler's tactics than bush's - fooling the masses, manipulating the "useful idiots", expansion of govt into private lives, etc.

huntinman

06-29-2010, 06:09 PM

the funny thing is that obamas strategy fits so much more with hitler's tactics than bush's - fooling the masses, manipulating the "useful idiots", expansion of govt into private lives, etc.

No doubt, throw in packing the SCOTUS with lib hand puppets and they are tearing down the country from all angles.

depittydawg

06-29-2010, 07:10 PM

The other lib fallback. Either Bush did it or you are a Nazi. Great debate pup.

It was a joke my ignorant groupie.

kb27_99

06-29-2010, 09:57 PM

The failure of Obama is one of leadership. He has the biggest stage in the world and has failed to use it. Instead of specifying what needs to be done, and twisting congress, especially his own party, to enact it, he has defered to what is no doubt one of the most corrupt and ineffective congress' in our history to work it out, then he goes along with whatever they come up with. With health care we started with something meaningful and ended with a giant question mark that the insurance industry more than any others crafted. His lack of leadership lead to that fiasco. Now we see the same pattern with financial reform. In this case they waited until they could all shout success, and now behind closed doors are gutting the bill.
I think the root of Obama's lack of leadership is his belief that getting 'something' done is paramount; rather than doing the right thing. What he should have done is veto the final health care bill that was sent to him and hold the Senate accountable to the electorate for screwing it up. It's looking like the same ending for financial reform.

Did you even read the quote? You danced around the question. What would YOU suggest we do to improve our energy policies?

depittydawg

06-29-2010, 10:54 PM

Did you even read the quote? You danced around the question. What would YOU suggest we do to improve our energy policies?

I don't dance partner. Not even badly. Just ask my wife. If I were Potus .... first get the country going full speed on Solar and Wind. Europe is doing it now, China and Japan are not far behind. It works. Provide incentives to homebuilders and home owners to invest in the technology. A national mission similar to Apollo could get the country moving developing new and improved technologies. I'd invest heavily in the infrastructure of the nation. Other than the National Hiway system under Ike, it has been largely neglected since the New Deal. From there who knows where or how fast we end up. Nobody even dreamed of the technologies that came out of the Apollo program. We can only guess at would could be developed if we actually tried.

I would also continue to support the use of fossil fuels with an emphasis on efficiency, not consumption. Place a usage tax on fossil fuels, of lets say a buck a gallon, for anything other than commuting to work or doing work, i.e. farming, trucking etc. That should more motivate consumers to demand better efficiency from transportation products (which can already be produced).

Now, before you chew this up, lets here what you would do. And please don't say "drill baby drill". We've seen what that gave us in the Gulf of Mexico.